Climbing Outdoors in the UK - ICMC Freshers Trip 2014

(Fri - Sun, 24th - 26th Oct)

If you've seen my bloody hand on FB/instagram, here's the reason. I spent the last weekend scrambling up and over grit stone in the Peak District with ICMC. I kinda jumped at the chance to climb natural rock again, and it was nth short of fun (though painful)! [Grit stone is what it sounds like - gritty, like super coarse sandpaper, and hence the subsequent damage. It's different from the limestone (I think?) in Batu/Krabi. Those weren't that rough but I haven't forgotten their sharp edges.]

Sun before we hardly saw it again

But superficial injury fortunately wasn't the main highlight of my experience, which was nth like any previous climbing trips I've been on. The weather was crazy. Mildly wet + cold + super windy = not v comfortable conditions for doing any sort of outdoor activity, but I guess that's part of the package - you climb outdoors in the cold, wet and windy, or not at all. I piled on layers to climb and my harness (sized for t-shirt and tights) had to be adjusted almost to the max. My feet didn't hurt when I wore my climbing shoes too! Then I tried to wiggle my toes and realised they had fallen asleep in the cold.

The climbs

The first boulder with some easy routes

On Sat we went to an area called Stanage, more specifically, The Plantation. First time bouldering outdoors! Although I spent half the day bouldering, and the other half hiding from the wind. We picked some easy routes for starters and managed to complete them (and take some photos on top of the boulder hahaha) and I felt quite warm and ready to climb some more. Then the weather decided to be nasty and deal us strong winds with intermittent rain. The cold makes it v difficult to start climbing coz the fingers get all numb and raw, but climbing is the only way to keep warm enough to continue. I have concluded that our low level of activity this day was coz bouldering meant we were always close to the ground. Higher chance of sitting and resting and in the end feeling too cold to get back on the rocks. But I still blame the weather :/

Completed my first ever natural boulder problem!

Not the same with high walling. You're kept on the move finding routes to do and when you're belaying/tied in you're committed to climb. Which was why I found the next day much more fruitful.

The first route I seconded (inside the cavity)

A senior told us that top-roping is frowned upon in the UK. Sometimes it's coz top-roping is a "safer option" that makes routes a lot less intimidating, and hence accessible to more people. The more people go on the rocks, the more it wears down. But mostly it's coz top-roping is seen as cheating, like not true completion of a route. Here, sport or trad climbing is the way to go.

If you look carefully, you can see 2 ropes

I spent the second day seconding [ha] in Burbage North. In some ways, it was top-roping except with the extra element of cleaning (taking off) trad gear the first climber placed for protection. Mostly, trad climbers do routes easier than what they can do indoors coz of the inherent danger. The routes I did were simple (in trad grade mostly V diff), but I still struggled coz of a few reasons: (1) The weather (2) most of the climbs were cracks which I haven't experienced much of i.e. spent a lot of time experimenting and feeling around (3) I sometimes quite chicken, so I spent a lot of time testing before committing. And I was on top-rope!

Nevertheless, it was a good day of inching up the rock, squeezing my hands/arms/whole body into cracks and whaling/belly-flopping over the top. Did a total of four routes that day, which doesn't sound a lot. But I was grouped with 2 seniors and on each route all of us would climb to the top before coiling the rope and walking down an easier path, which took time. Trad climbers use 2 "half" ropes in leading up, and they set up a top-rope system when they get to the top so two people get to second up after them. [Sounds pretty garbled, but I did my best to summarise haha.] I also learnt to lead belay with two ropes - there are differences to normal lead belaying.

All cracks. There is an extra rope here from a previous climb btw.

This was also the day I got most of my scrapes and cuts and bloody fingers. I spent a lot of time feeling inside cracks for purchase and pretty much sanded my fingers and knuckles down without realising it. When you're climbing you're psyched and don't feel the pain, and then get a shock at the top. I got my first bloody flapper here, and it wasn't a small amount of blood >.< I was reluctant to wipe it off on my clothes and I didn't want to leave bloodstains on the rope. So I tried to wipe it off on a rock before asking for a passing senior for tape. My hands are pretty sore now to be honest.

The worst is under the tape. Semi-healed as of 28/10

Everything else
We were packed into 3 mini-buses along with sooo much equipment to get to the peaks and stayed in a village hall while we were there, a short drive away from the crags. There was heating which was awesome and mats to put our sleeping bags on, but no showers (not needed anyway coz it was too cold to perspire).

Packed with mats. Warm up in the mini-bus climbing over stuff.

Hole in the wall for food.

 I don't think I slept properly at all those 2 nights. 2 cans of beer didn't help one bit.

Food was great! The seniors got up early (earlier than 6.30am) to make bfast on both days for everyone - effort (Y). Also got to try ICMC chilli, and help making it (there is a special ingredient)! Cooking for 45 ppl is crazy, but an efficient supply chain always helps. The uncooked food (almost all sains basic xD) came in piles and we literally spent a few hours chopping and cooking. I wasn't hungry anymore by the time I got to eat, but it was fun to help out :) Unfortunately, I didn't get to take part in the sock game (an ICMC tradition where 2 ppl try to pull each other's sock off while suspended from the ceiling in their harnesses) :( Idea for UMC to consider so I can play? Hahaha.

Ever seen this much garlic at once?

ICMC chilli! No, it's not the chilli we know, but it was nice :)

So ended my first outdoor climbing experience in the UK. The weather made such a huge impact and I wasn't expecting it to be this bad. I think it's still more comfortable to climb in the tropics, drenched in sweat over numb fingers and toes any day! Maybe if the wind just calmed down for a moment, it would have been really pleasant weather. But still, it was great fun :) Let's see if I have the time to join any more outdoor trips before I leave.

The peaks are brown now. It's definitely colder.

Onslaught of Events

Random mish-mash summary of what I've been up to/what has happened since coming to London on the night of 30th Sept 2014.

The "more of us" finally arrived and it was great catching up again. We may all have been from different cliques in SG but this group seems to have "upgraded" a notch in closeness (or at least that's what I feel at the moment). Now that sch has started, we have been separated into our different fields, but in the first 1.5 weeks we were this herd of lost sheep roaming around the place, going for events together and choosing not to go for others, also together.

And for the first time, I have known utter irresponsibility. I guess it wouldn't have been the first time, but when I give my trust, it takes multiple disappointments before I cannot forgive again. So yes, there is an unpleasant person in question, and this person has failed to do many things, including giving basic respect to others. One should treat others like one wants to be treated, so basically, and sadly, this person deserves no respect from anyone at all.

I've started climbing again!!! Properly!!! So I've joined Imperial College Mountaineering Club (ICMC) and the plan is to climb 2-3 times a week for as long as I can. Made friends with some SG people, and this will be my climbing family until I go back to UMC. [I think we tend to gravitate towards ppl from our own country. 90% of my new friends are like from SG.] After 4 months of nearly-no climbing in Derby, I've regressed a lot. In my first two sessions I spent a lot of time on the mat coz I couldn't do much with my unconditioned fingers and unseasoned feet. And it was really quite painful. But coming back is still faster than learning from scratch i.e. noticeable improvement which is always nice. I should get a training plan from somewhere if I still want to compete next year, although the fingerboards are placed damn high up (~2m). And there's always cake on Wed sessions, baked by the club seniors :P

Went for my hall boat party on the night of 12th Sept. Was quite a cool event, with everyone dressed in formal. Winter coat activated for the first time as well, as it rained the whole night (from when we left hall till we were walking back) and it was quite cold. There was a short respite during the boat journey that allowed us to go to the upper deck and watch the riverside lights of London go past. Most of the SG group (Singaporeans really tend to clump together hahaha) are not party/drinking people, so we spent the night having our own brand of fun i.e. guessing-games. I think anyone else would've thought we were the most boring bunch ever, but whatever, I was quite happy doing whatever I was doing ^^.

I recently finished reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, one of my favourite authors. It is a children's book, but I recommend it to anyone of any age, because it's really not v difficult to enjoy a story about adventures in the course of growing up (in a graveyard). The episodic nature of the book also makes it great for those who don't read regularly, like I read it on my phone whenever I'm bored or alone.

Still meaning to write a post on the post-internship road trip. But that's still quite a few days in the making.

Other random news includes multiple shopping trips for groceries/necessities, mingling with freshers (some of them 3 years younger than me), and going for free food, and more free food. J and I crashed a mass BBQ meant for another hall (they didn't check and there was so much food anyway). Students are attracted to free food like bees to honey. Droves and droves of bees which know how to queue. I've always associated queuing with SG, but like many things, the queues seem so much bigger here. Lastly, I seem to have become semi-used to the British keyboard and sometimes find myself trying to key in a double quotation mark on my laptop using the @ key.

The Internship

This is soooo overdue, what with the moving into hall, the walking all over London, and the late nights listening to others party = where got time to blog. But before I talk about our road trip and moving to London and everything else, I still gotta talk about The Internship.

I have been very fortunate to land the internship with RR. It's a well-known company (even if many people still associate it with the cars), but I think I’ve gained so much more than just a significant name to put in my resume from my time in Derby. So many things - where to start? I’m gonna kope the template from Carina’s blog and use it here, so go over and read her experiences as well!

Socializing 

Learning more about them
"I think you did incredibly well in a very strange environment"

Being a foreigner (not a tourist) was a whole new experience for me. In the beginning, getting used to their culture meant realizing the differences in behaviours and actions, and then emulating them. Sometimes, it's simple e.g. the British don't leave their teaspoons in their coffee/tea mugs and during a meeting, I quickly saw that my kopitiam style was the odd one out. Other differences run deeper, and it is important sometimes to conform. One good e.g. is that they take recycling (as part of Health, Safety & Environment) V SERIOUSLY, and a telling-off from the cleaner is one of the milder consequences of non-conformance.

There is no need to become a fake ang moh (for Asians), but learning their culture is a must, and it's interesting too! I had fun asking and learning stuff from my supervisor. Sometimes it feels (from the amount of things I don't know), like I'm five again, and asking all those random questions out of curiosity. These are conversation topics to avoid awkward silence anyway, and I really wanted to know how come pubs could run out of food by "dinner" at 6pm. "Dinner" doesn't always refer to the evening meal here btw, just take note. Many names of things and places are not pronounced phonetically either, like we learnt in school (go look up how Greenwich is pronounced - it's not what you think!!!), so listening helps!

Making friends

There’s a stark difference in work culture as compared to SG that makes this possible. Most of the time back home, you don’t feel the same approachability with superiors even if they’re kind to you. There's always a sort of divide even between colleagues of the same level. Just an e.g., I'm not too sure I'd feel comfortable playing badminton with any direct superior in SG. Things are more chill here (relative to what we're used to), which is good for making friends! Even though it's mostly the young people in the office that we hung out with outside of work, doing what young people do, we do interact with older colleagues as well. And now even though we've left, there will always be this magic thing called FB.

Getting involved in peoples’ lives

Sounds like learning to become a kaypo, but I don’t mean it that way. I’ve posted some snippets on what we’ve been up to outside of work before, and (besides the weekend trips) most of these have been because of invitations and initiations by colleagues. Or sometimes by us actually. The point is, when you're an intern in a foreign country, you should NOT get caught up in work alone, and simply aim to be intern of the year or smth. Working hard will earn you recognition, but the best experiences come from personal interactions with the people there, your supervisors and colleagues.

I've been rapper dancing, tried church bell-ringing, and seen apple trees for the first time (along with many many other plants you won't find in sunny Singapore). This is so much more than I could've learnt from a desk and this all comes because others have let us into their lives, and in the process made our lives colourful.

Telling them more about us
I love it when conversations about culture are two-way streets, coz it's always awesome when someone is interested in learning more about the tiny island I call home. 

[They may not like salted-egg yolk or durian sweets (kinda expected lol), but being game enough to try (multiple times just to be sure) is good enough!]

Work

Google - My Best Friend

Couldn't do without Google, esp since I had to learn Excel VBA from scratch i.e. office internet down = cannot do work. My work included creating a sort of interface in Excel and obviously, there was the need to make sure people use it correctly. This means think of a solution, Google and copy code from help forums and hope it works. About 80% of the time it didn’t, which was damn irritating. But eventually, I went from not knowing how to read whatever I was copying to writing bits of my own code. Achievement unlocked!

In other, less hectic times, Google maps was useful for planning weekend trips ;) 

Freedom

I got plenty of this at work as far as I was concerned, and not (not always at least) because my sup was too busy to care about me. It's nice to not have to have someone check on you at every set interval or have to constantly report your progress, esp when progress is erratic. It takes a lot of pressure off and it's great to know that I'm trusted to deliver, which motivates me to keep up my standards. Win-win situation right? Which leads me to my next point. 

Tidbits for the future
Little thoughts and experiences don't count for much officially, but I rmb those well. Having met many different situations and interacted with people from all over the place due to my super-broad scope, I have seen quite a lot of things for an intern. I have seen positions which I can see my future self in, or see myself totally avoiding. I have seen behaviours to emulate, and also to abstain from. I have been thrown faaaaar outside my comfort zone, but could always come back to my team for guidance, a team I was comfortable with, and which most importantly, treated me as one of them.

I think when I graduate, all these experiences will come back and count in how I treat people (interns included haha) and also the path I choose. The culture in SG is different from here, and the bosses back home work differently, so not everything I've experienced will apply. I think in relative sense, working in SG will always feel more restricted and rigid, simply because Asians are like that. Whatever the case, these are memories to be treasured.

Level up!
What happens when your supervisor goes away on two weeks of holiday (extremely common here) and you have to cover some of his duties? And this happens over a crucial period and involves many stakeholders. AND you're still kind of wet behind the ears, still in need of guidance. Steel yourself and move forward.

 
I rmb remarking to J smth like "I really hope I survive the next two weeks". Turns out I didn't just survive, but went on to have some of the most enjoyable and fruitful days in my term. I'm timid by nature and, I'm not sure if this is obvious, but it's smth I have to consciously counter. In those two weeks esp, I had to 敢敢来 a lot, so that I could support rather than burden my team. Struggle is a good thing (in occasional doses) because that's one of the fastest ways to learn. In the end, I think I'm simply not so scared anymore. Which is why if I had any level up experience, it's this. :)

Life

Speaking a language that we know no one else in the office understands

Yes, Mandarin. Nice to embrace our roots in a foreign place by openly commenting on random stuff happening around us. It’s kinda like talking behind someone’s back in front of them but we weren’t being rude, I promise! xD Just little comments on what others are having for lunch that kind, for our own entertainment purposes hahaha. It's lucky that we came here where everyone speaks English and we didn't have to grapple with our problems in another language (at the beginning siao liao). And I wouldn't have known before this, but it's tiring to keep speaking proper English with a suppressed SG accent. [According to a new ang moh friend I made, Singaporeans speak in a way that "curves in weird places", which is totally true hahaha!] So among the three of us, we always had a lovely time speaking the language(s) we're used to.

Out exploring!
Frankly, there's not much to do in Derby. [Funny thing is many people tell me this, but some do get defensive when I say so. Guess we're all like that, try saying SG is boring in front of me xD] An hour's driving radius encompasses many beautiful places to visit and hence, our car was put to really good use ^^. I haven't blogged about all of these trips (either due to laziness or anti-climatic experiences), but I think you've got a gist of what we've been up to! I can never get enough of the UK countryside, and I suck at long inclined walks, but the views are ALWAYS more than worth it.

We were at the top of Mam Tor saying that our photos are starting to look repetitive. Always the same rolling greenery with the same overcast sky as a backdrop. I'm no pro photographer. I have no way of making the photos look like what I actually see, let alone capture what I actually feel. It's always just me in the same purple windbreaker. Here, my descriptive abilities fail me, and all I can say is that it's always different.

Those 15 weeks have been a blast. To my school mates, never pass up a chance to intern overseas, I think I've proven my point here. Thank you RR for having us! See you Derby, and all the places we've been, I won't be forgetting anytime soon. And thank you as well, if you've read this post till the end :)

Moved to London!

 The mess.

 The room as I found it.












 

The car as we bought it (not really, but kind of).

The new room! (in a mess!)
[Will start PM-ing my new address in a bit]
It's goodbye Derby, for now.

Happening days

Today was our last day at RR, of course I have things to share on that, but I shall clear this backlog first.
 
A few weeks back my mum asked me if I'd ever seen an apple tree. I thought, yea I've been eating the fruit all my life - should have right? ... Actually, err... No. Epitome of a mark of a suaku. But I guess everyone is a suaku at some point, the world how big please. I didn't choose to be born on an island without apple trees, but then that leads to the best experience when I get to travel: so many things new and exciting! I'm not the only suaku around anyway, they don't even know what a mangosteen is. xD

Diary-mode is on for this post. Friends, it's gonna be irrelevant and long, but I think I'll appreciate writing this in the years to come.

September's been slow for blogging huh. Not that I've been doing nothing and hence have nothing to post on... Quite the opposite in fact. So much so that I'm still seemingly struggling to recover from lack of sleep (from last week) i.e. sleeping earlier and earlier these days but still waking up like a frightened zombie. I'm not complaining though. I wouldn't turn down a chance to hang out/do something new after work (even if I had a presentation the next day and my slides were 20% complete), simply coz: JUST GO ONLY.

We didn't have friends in Derby. Now (outside of work) I suppose we can count some supervisors/colleagues as awesome buddies. The happening times are all thanks to them too! You can have a lot of fun around a sleepy place like Derby as long as you bother to know people well enough for them to invite you into their happening lives.

[Sorry for the lack of photos. Sometimes I just like to live in the moment.]

(8th Sept, Mon) Church bell ringing.

Most of us have probably heard them, but this time we got a chance to see the ringing. The action goes on in the tower above the main church, so first imagine a large cylindrical room with 6 (the number of bells) ropes hanging through holes in the ceiling. This is the ringing chamber and the ropes lead up to the bells in the space above. Not everyone gets access to this space - you must either be a bell-ringer, or know a bell-ringer.

In this case, the bell-ringer was J's sup (whom you must've realised by now contributes a lot to our happening lives). We also had the chance to go up and see the actual bells, and had one of them ring while we were in that space = eardrum shock 到. Bells are pretty low maintenance and some of the 6 bells dated to 400 years ago. Not exactly a v lucrative business. And we all had a go at ringing a bell, which involves a pretty precise calibration of strength. If not, the coiling rope would either slap us over the face, or slap J's sup in his face while stood in front of us coaching.

It was also Mid-Autumn night. 月亮在外地会不会比较圆？ I guess so. Kinda ironic that we want to embrace our culture even more now. I also realised that I haven't properly celebrated MA in years now, other than just eating mooncakes. Or maybe it's just fun to each tell our mangled versions of the Chang'e legend, and the various different gory misfortunes that will befall you if you point at the moon.

D: Tongue gets cut off (??)
J: Fingers get cut off (??)
Me: Bleed from the ears + go mute

[Was legit-ly too tired to do my presentation on this night.]

(9th Sept, Tues) Garden introduction.

My sup is vegetarian and he has his own allotment. It's a British thing: plots of land issued by the government or private owners for residents to grow their veg patches. It's basically a 7x50m garden plot within a larger plot of land along with other peoples' plots. He brought us around and quizzed us on some of his plants (think he must've got over 20 varieties in there?). Safe to say we weren't v successful in guessing - go Google what a young asparagus plant looks like.

Also, something that I predicted had a high chance of happening - he gave us quite a lot of veg. Butternut squash, purple cabbage, gherkins, and around 10 apples. That wasn't the intention of visiting though. After years of reading about them in ang moh books, I just wanted to see what a real veg patch looks like. My sup and his wife were really really generous, which is smth I've come to associate with many people here. It's much easier to live in a foreign place where the people are so warm, it makes the weather feel a little less cold.

[Side note: we brought mooncakes to work that day. The Asian supermarket stocks limited flavours (don't expect 冰皮 or durian) and we got the 双黄 and the 五仁 ones. We were worried that the ang mohs wouldn't like them, esp the 五仁 (I used to avoid it, but I think it's grown on me) and there was no plain lotus paste.

They LOVED the 五仁 flavour. My guess is that it tastes like fruit cake to them. For those who haven't tried, here's a short intro. I've had a few people tell me they kept taking slices, and my sup esp kept coming back for more. He made a face on tasting the salted egg yolk though, and I don't blame him hahahaha!]


[Lots of procrastination from then till Fri]

(11th Sept, Thurs) A special dinner.

Now, it was one day till my end-of-attachment presentation and I still hadn't finished my slides and scripted them. Details are vague now, but I rmb waking at 4.30am on this day to get a head start (if you could still call it so). The thing was that I had alr had two long workdays out at a research centre so I wasn't in the best mental shape to think out a presentation.

But I wouldn't have considered missing a dinner out anyway. That night we went to J's sup's house and cooked a Singaporean meal for him and his wife. I didn't have it in mind, but at the end I realized we actually cooked a 三菜一汤 (3-dishes-1-soup) meal for them - the usual Chinese family meal configuration. On the menu: oyster sauce veg, steamed egg, black sauce sesame oil chicken, and pork rib corn soup. Typical fare right?! I myself was happy with the meal (and not forgetting I can claim credit for most part of the chicken and egg ^^). But it was good to eat like this. Even though this is a normal meal in Sg, we eat simpler here (one meat one veg with rice) coz there's only three of us. So I guess it's become kind of a luxury...

After dinner, we sat and talked and talked... Then with a promise of going back to visit (definitely without question!) we left and reached home almost at midnight. I was up till 3.30am in the next morning.

(12th Sept, Fri) Presentation day.

I had 3 hours of sleep that night, but I was able to pull together the remaining bits of my presentations with relative leisure in the office. I did fine in the end, wasn't as nervous as a previous time.

A point to note is that the people here are way more generous with their praises than we are used to. So much so that we sometimes thought that they had pretty low expectations of us haha. To be fair, you wouldn't know what to expect from some random student coming from halfway across the world. It's really nice to be showered in praise for doing my best. They sure know how to make interns feel appreciated.

But even though the Asian approach to praising is more reserved, it's still sweet. I rmb receiving rare smiley faces from my GP teacher in the JC days - those really made me happy.

Belgium 2014

All things fascinating to my fresh pair of eyes.

Our Belgium trip in down-to-earth nutshells (or melon shells maybe)! It's taken a while to write, coz things have been really happening at work and none of the photos are edited. It's a pretty long post! Best read as chapters in free time coz I dun wanna split the post (if you're interested hahaha :)).

The Experience

The miscellaneous section in which I summarise everything.

Nice view of Brussels

This was my first trip to Europe! A whole new set of sights, culture and food to keep me occupied and happy. I went without knowing what to expect (except knowing that I had to try all the Belgian waffles, fries, mussels... detailed below), and it was really an eye-opener.

Not forgetting that travelling with friends is awesome, and we met up with good friends we hadn't seen (physically) in a long while. Belgium was the chosen meeting point because it's geographically the midpoint of the UK, France and Germany. Sounded epic when we first came up with the idea, and actually carrying it out was even more epic!

It rained much of the time we were there, which meant we were walking a lot in the rain. Inevitably, it was cold most of the time.

Lastly, I turned 21 in Bruges. Nth special really, I don't feel any wiser xD But it was lovely to read the whatsapp messages pouring in over breakfast, despite much confusion over the time difference. I never had a chalet/party (not my style actually), but how many ppl get the chance to spend their 21st overseas? I'm really fortunate.

The Place

We split our 3.5-ish days in Belgium between two of it's well-known cities: Brussels (21 and 24/8) and Bruges (22-23/8).

Brussels and Bruges are both full of beautiful architecture. Tall, old buildings with religious history naturally have a majestic air about them and there are plenty in Belgium. We, like the usual tourists, visited the central squares of these places - the Grand Place in Brussels and the Markt in Bruges.

The Grand-Place under cloud cover

The Markt

My first time visiting this sort of European central square. Imagine an enormous area surrounded by olden day skyscrapers - wow-factor damn high. More than simply appreciating the beauty of these buildings, I've got a huge amount of respect for the people who built them. The intricacy of the facade plus the sheer scale couldn't have been easy to accomplish back then.

The Town Hall - extremely difficult to get a pic of coz of its height

Makes one wonder how they did it, it'd have been a feat even for modern times: look at the top of the Town Hall - what crane could reach that height? Let alone placing a gold-leafed statue there (oops you can't really see it). Even on the saner heights of the building, each statue is different from the next. I suppose there is meaning behind all this (which we didn't find out), but to the layperson it's a representation of the amount of heart put into construction.

These places were even more majestic at night.

The Belfry of Bruges

We stayed in youth hostels (normally 30 mins walk out of city centre). Much of our time was spent walking into the cities, going in museums, and walking to find food. We visited a diamond museum and a chocolate museum in Bruges and the comics museum in Brussels - all really detailed and interesting. Sweep away the common perception of museums as dusty places full of boring or dead things. Ok la, maybe depends on what kind of museum. But if a museum visit is in the plans, allocate at least an hour to browse. Only thing is, in the comics museum, not all the exhibits have English translations.

I esp enjoyed the chocolate museum, and it didn't hurt that there were 3 free samples (including one praline from a live demo!) :P [we bought 1kg worth of dark choc buttons to bring back to the office. everything was cleared within one workday and many ppl came up to rave about them ^^] Was supposed to visit the beer museum as well, but we felt €11 and 3 samples (I can't rmb how much exactly but my guess is smth like 3 pints) was too much.

The demonstration counter behind a barrier

I guess the last "place" of interest would be the canals. On boats! We went on a canal boat tour in Bruges, which is a super tourist thing to do, which means we had to go for it. Their canals are not like our longkangs if that's what you're thinking xD More like mini rivers with overhanging trees and cute bridges running over them. Some of the bridges are so low you have to duck to avoid getting scalped while passing under them. We sat in a motorised boat and meandered the canal network throughout the city, with the driver/tour guide doing the narration. 

 

 

Another thing that amazes me about Belgium is the multilingualism. The driver displayed this by doing the narration in 3 (or 4) languages - French, German/Dutch (or both, I can't tell), and English. Same with the demonstrator at the chocolate museum and any service staff we met, and they are all fluent.

[food for thought: see ah, we can boast that we have 4 national languages but how many of us can speak all (or even 3 or 2) of them fluently? no, singlish doesn't count.]

Gave the other tourist attraction a miss and used our own feet

The only (BIG) complaint I have is the cobblestone pavements (see below). My right ankle might be fully functional now but that doesn't stop it from throwing tantrums, esp on cold days. Every morning esp I'd be hobbling for a bit like an old person.

Sorry Carina - you just happen to be in the clearest photo I have of the ground xD

The Food

Our first proper meal in Belgium: sushi buffet. Yes, we missed Japanese food so much we pounced at the relatively-affordable sushi after touching down in Europe. Well, it was all-you-can-eat for €16 (not exactly cheap), but to put things into perspective, a plate of sushi (2 pieces) in Derby can cost up to £8. I ate as much as I could - good for the cold weather.

The dishes came on toy trains as opposed to the usual belts.

Now on to the Belgian fare.

So everyone's told me of Belgian waffles, chocolate, fries and mussels. Here's the thought: the more you hear, the higher the expectation. You'd expect the best from the place named in the famous food. So did I "fly to heaven" (or smth similar) when I had my first taste of chocolate-banana covered waffles, or mussels in white wine? Ehhh, no. Like i said, down-to-earth, and I suspect the pre-trip food hype should shoulder much of the blame for this anti-climax. Not to say the food wasn't good! We had really nice food throughout our stay, just that there wasn't any urge to squeal about it anymore.

We mostly followed this map: http://www.use-it.travel/cities/detail/bruges/ to find the cheap and good (i.e. student-friendly) waffles (21) and fries (28). Verdict on waffles: pretty overrated to me, I think I can find greater happiness eating waffles from can 11. Most of the "goodness" comes from the generous amounts of chocolate sauce (no complains there), but then again that's nth special. I dun like whipped cream.

Verdict on fries: ok, but better not to order with sauce. There was just the once when we bought fries (on its own, not as part of a dish). We shared a large order, and got the "Samurai" sauce as a topping, which came in copious amounts and was pretty spicy and creamy. 4 of us were sharing but even then I was quite full. [cannot imagine one person eat one large serving, lagi jelat sia] Most of our meals there actually came with fries as a side - which means I was spamming water a lot.

We had a total of 3 dinners in Belgium. The first was nth to shout about, but the other two are experiences to share.

On the second night in Bruges, we ate at one of the restaurants in the fish market area. It was a big meal and cost €30 in total. But here's why it was a good meal: there was a great variety of food and we came away feeling really full with no wastage. Cui paranoma skills aside, here's a glimpse at the spread, (but doesn't look as good as it actually was on that day).

As I can rmb it, we had mussels in white wine, rabbit stew, melon wrapped with smoked smth (I can't rmb what meat), and two stone grills: mixed fish and mixed meat. Oh not forgetting: garlic bread and 1.5L of beer to share among 6 of us.

The stone grill was amazing, sorry amusing - you have to salt it to prevent the food from sticking (and also to flavour a bit). And as usual with ambiguous instructions, there were funny results (see the salt-covered stone in the photo). Food was awesome, really largely thanks to the huge variety - all the different tastes. The rabbit was in a dark stew (which I think contained some alcohol) and was sweet and tender, and I kept eating the applesauce that was sitting in front of me. At last only the huge pot of mussels was left (we ordered 1kg). As Jerald said, every time we looked inside there was still some more, even after the 7th/8th helping. People do eat the dish as a meal though, all 1kg of mussels.

And oh, it was my bday that day! The others went to order a chocolate dessert for me (which we all shared) without my knowing, and they asked for a candle. It came with a firecracker xD

Choc mousse in place of cake

For those who do not yet know, I like dark chocolate (just chocolate, no fruity bits, but nuts are ok). I didn't buy any choc for myself, although I did contribute to the swift disappearance of the choc buttons in the office ;)

We'd alr drank 1.5L of beer between us at dinner, and then we went to buy some more. These are fruit beers: peach-, cherry-, and fruit punch-flavoured. The others had their preferences and verdicts, but to me, one was good, one was cough syrup and the last one I'd totally avoid. Someone thought one of these tasted like puke xD

 The final night's dinner (in Brussels) was memorable, but not just for the food. We'd gone to a tourist district where practically every restaurant was serving the same things i.e. mussels and fries and other common European dishes. The first time we were there on Fri before lunch, things were quiet and sane, but dinner time on Sun was crazy.

The street lined by restaurants on both sides - a tourist trap

The interesting thing is that even though all the restaurants are serving the same thing right next to each other, their prices differ (normally €11 to €14) - so slowly walk and look. And we were a bunch of 6 Asians - bright shiny targets for touts waiting at their restaurant entrances. All I can say is that there are right and wrong ways to attract customers like us.

Bad example 1: Blocking our way down the narrow street even when we politely decline.

Bad example 2: Trying to speak mandarin to us - I'm not sure you know what 我爱你妈妈 means if you're trying to use that to attract customers.

Good example: Offering a €10 meal, inclusive of a drink (whatever you want, beer, wine...), dessert and free wifi. 

We took the €10 offer, and the food was not bad (not that we had much to compare against). I'm saying that even though my medium steak was kinda rare in the middle. The tout held to his promises too, so we had beer/wine and a supermarket-bought sugar waffle and I could whatsapp my sis at once about it! 

To me, food always tastes better when shared. Which leads me to the next bit...

The Friends

How long it's been since the days in the RPR [in common time, not v long but humour me]. Suddenly we were all separated and sent to different corners of the world. Ok la, for me there's always D and J but it's obviously different from having the rest of the class around. Hahaha things are basically a lot more fun with ppl you know you can click with around you. I like my own time and space but I dun see myself as a solo traveler. With friends, you get to share and try more types of food, and you get to make all the funny comments about random things to ppl who'll listen and laugh along.

Things dun change. We might have been in Europe, but that didn't stop us from gathering in C's room and chatting till it started raining, then chatting some more to wait it out, before finally heading back to our hostel in a cold drizzle at midnight.

Great to see you all! Waiting for the day we meet again in London :)